The City of God

This is an edited and expanded version of the sermon for All Saints’ Sunday. The sermon itself is available as a podcast. To hear it, click the link below.

The City of God

All Saints’ Sunday

Reading: Revelation 7:9-17

In our first reading this morning from the book of Revelation, St John describes his vision of heaven. He sees a great multitude standing before the throne and the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands. They cry out in a loud voice:

‘Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!’ (Revelation 7:10)

St John is told that those who are standing before the throne will hunger and thirst no more. The Lamb will be their shepherd and will guide them to the springs of the water of life, and God will wipe every tear from their eyes.

It is a wonderful vision. It expresses the hope that whatever suffering we may experience here and now in this world, it will one day come to an end. I think that in the minds of most believers that day will be when we die and go to be with God in heaven. We need, however, to read to the end of the book of Revelation. For St John’s vision ends not in heaven, but with a new heaven and a new earth (Revelation 21:1-2). At the end of the book of Revelation, St John sees the Holy City, the New Jerusalem, coming down from heaven as a bride adorned for her husband (Revelation 22:1-2).

I mentioned earlier the stained-glass window at the back of the church, the West window. The imagery is from St John's vision of the New Jerusalem. The window depicts the Lamb and the river of life with the tree of life on either side of it with twelve different kinds of fruits and with its leaves for the healing of the nations. The window seeks to express our ultimate hope as believers of receiving eternal life as we drink from the river of life. It is to the river in the City of God that the Lamb is leading his people. It is this City, the New Jerusalem, that is both our hope and our home. So, as we leave church every Sunday, we see the hope that is meant to guide us and inspire us in the week ahead.

We are, of course, in the area of vision and metaphor, a place where language is insufficient and ultimately breaks down as it tries to describe the indescribable. This image, however, of the City of God as our hope and our home is not only to be found in the book of Revelation. The writer of the letter to the Hebrews says:

‘For here we have no lasting city, but we are looking for the city that is to come.’ (Hebrews 13:14)

St Paul also uses the image of the city to express our hope. He tells the Galatians that the Jerusalem that is above is free, and she, he writes, is our mother (Galatians 4:26). St Paul tells the Philippians that even now our citizenship is in heaven. St Paul writes:

‘But our citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there that we are expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. He will transform the body of our humiliation that it may be conformed to the body of his glory, by the power that also enables him to make all things subject to himself.’ (Philippians 3:20–21)

All this is very important because it reminds us that our hope is not for a disembodied state in heaven, but for our bodies to be renewed and transformed to live in the New Jerusalem in a new heaven and earth.

St John writes in our second reading:

‘Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is.’ (1 John 3:2)

The Resurrected Christ appeared to his disciples not as a disembodied spirit, not as a ghost, but as a real human being with a body (Luke 24:36-43). You could see the scars and place your hand where the spear went into his side. He ate and drank with his disciples. Our hope, then, is that we too will have a resurrected body and that we will be like him.

St John tells us that those who have this hope purify themselves even as he is pure. In other words, our hope for the future will have an effect on how we live here in the present.

Three things, I think, follow from this. Firstly, that the cities that we live in now are not our home. Secondly, that our hope is to journey to the eternal city, the City of God. And thirdly, that the journey begins now.

Any of you who have listened to my Reflections on RTHK Radio 4 this week (and yes, that is a shameless plug; they are still available online and in the Facebook Group!) will have heard me quote St Augustine. St Augustine, a very important saint, wrote these words in what was to become one his major works:

‘Accordingly, two cities have been formed by two loves: the earthly by the love of self, even to the contempt of God; the heavenly by the love of God, even to the contempt of self.’ (Book 14, chapter 28)

The book, The City of God, was to be a foundational text for the Church as it faced the challenges of the Middle Ages. It has continued to be influential since. We all have to choose which of these two cities we want to belong to. Do we want to be citizens of the heavenly city, the City of God, or not?

The first believers believed that the City or Kingdom of God would come in their lifetime. As time went on, however, it became clear that the Kingdom of God was not going to come in their lifetime. And the Church and believers had to adjust and think through what it meant to live as believers in this world, living in this world while belonging to another, the one they hoped would come one day.

While this world hated and persecuted them, as Jesus said it would, it was fairly easy to remember that their allegiance was to the Lord Jesus Christ, the One whose Kingdom does not belong to this world (John 18:36). But when the city of Rome declared for the Kingdom of God, life became more complicated. Popes and bishops, for example, became powerful earthly rulers, and the Church became a major force in earthly political, social, and economic life. Bishops still sit in the British House of Lords, a leftover, a remnant from the time when such positions actually mattered.

Not all in the Church were happy with the accommodation the Church came to with earthly political power. Some saw it as a compromise, at best, and apostasy, at worst. It was in reaction to this accommodation with earthly political power that the monastic movement was born with its desire to escape from this world and to live a purer life separated from it.

Whatever we think of the role the Church has had in the world in the past, it is clear that the Church’s political power and position in this world is coming to an end. The power and influence the Church has had in human society is passing away. Indeed, in many places where the Church formerly exercised political power, it has largely now gone.

Many in the Church find it hard to let go of what the Church once had; others, bewail and mourn its passing and plan and plot how they may get it back. But the loss of what some miss and others try to regain provides us with the chance to rediscover something that has in fact been true all along, something true believers never forgot: this world is not our home; our citizenship is above. We belong to the City of God. This realization should be a cause for rejoicing. It enables us to reassess how we live here in this world, now so openly and increasingly hostile to us and our faith.

It is here that another great book can help us. John Bunyan published The Pilgrim’s Progress in 1678. He wrote it while in prison in Bedford, where I ministered for a number of years and my brother still ministers today. When visiting Bedford, Winnie and I frequently pass the place where John Bunyan was imprisoned. Winnie had her picture taken last summer in a pulpit that John Bunyan preached from. You will have to ask her if you want to see it! The Pilgrim’s Progress has been a very influential and popular book, being translated into 200 languages.

John Bunyan imagines the Christian life as a journey from the City of Destruction to the Celestial City. He describes how Christian, the pilgrim in the story, faces temptations, difficulties, and challenges on his way. Bunyan imagines the Christian life as a journey, as a pilgrimage, from the earthly city to the City of God. He challenges us to see that the cities of this world, the cities of destruction, are not our home. We are not to live by their attitudes and values. We are to live even now by the values and attitudes of the Celestial City, the City of God.

To put it another way: we are all expats here! Here in Hong Kong, we are familiar with the concept of the ‘expat’ because we have had expats living here since Hong Kong was established. I have lived here quite a few years myself, but people still see me as a foreigner. Obviously, they do! You can tell just by looking at me and listening to me that I do not come from Hong Kong. You can see that I am a foreigner.

So, here’s the thing: can people tell simply by looking at us and listening to us that we do not belong here, but belong to the City of God? Can they tell that we are foreigners here?

As Christian in Pilgrim’s Progress discovered, finding the way to the City of God is not always easy. Today is All Saints’ Sunday. You were probably wondering when I was going to get round to that! It is in finding the way to the Celestial City, the City of God, that the saints can help us. They have made the journey and now stand before the throne of God and the Lamb. They show us not only that it is possible to get to the City of God, but how to get there and how to overcome the obstacles on the way.

Now I know that many in the Church are a bit wary of the saints. They ask, don’t we have God? Don’t we have our Lord Jesus Christ? Don’t we have the Holy Spirit? Aren’t they enough? Why do we need the saints? We need to be very careful here, because while it can sound as though we are being very spiritual in saying this, it can also be a form of spiritual arrogance. After all, we have God, we have our Lord Jesus Christ, and we have the Holy Spirit, but, the Bible tells us, we still need each other and we still need the Church. As believers who say the Creeds and mean them, we also believe in the ‘communion of the saints’. This means that we are all joined together, the Church past, present, and future. The saints are God’s gift to the Church.

In his letters, St Paul tells those to whom he writes to imitate him. He presents himself as an example to believers of faith, as a role model for them to copy, a living visual aid to help them on their journey (1 Corinthians 4:16-17; Philippians 3:17). St Paul is critical of those who see leaders such as himself as celebrities, but he knows the value of guides.

On Reflections, this week, I was talking about some of the saints who can act as spiritual guides for us on our journey, who also model faith for us. Saints like Saint Augustine, Saints Perpetua and Felicity, Saint Monica, Saint Hildegard, and Saint Catherine.

St Paul writes in Philippians that he is writing to them so that they may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, in which, he says, ‘you shine like stars in the world’ (Philippians 2:15). The world is in darkness, and while we shine like stars in the world, finding our way through the darkness can be challenging. God has given us the saints as guides to help us on our way.

But the journey must begin! We, like Christian in Pilgrim’s Progress, have to leave the security and comfort of life in the City of Destruction and make our way to the City of God. I have referred to two classic books this morning. Let me close by referring to one more. I do not know how many of you have heard of Thomas a Kempis and his book, The Imitation of Christ. It is one of the best-selling books of all time. So, if you have not heard of it, look it up! It was written in the 15th century. In it, Thomas a Kempis wrote this:

‘For a small income, a long journey is undertaken; for everlasting life, many will scarce once lift a foot from the ground.’ (Book 3, chapter3)

Thomas a Kempis is making the point that we are happy to go on long journeys when there is some material gain for us in this world, but that many of us will not even take the first step towards the City of God.

As we read and think today of those who did lift a foot off the ground, those saints who have gone before us, and who now are standing before the throne of God and the Lamb, let us too begin our journey. Or, if we have begun it, let us press on with it, and not be discouraged or give up, but follow their example and journey towards the City of God. For the Lamb will be our shepherd too and will lead us with all his saints to the river of the water of life.

May we, then, with hope faithfully follow him and all those who have already made the journey and who now stand before the throne and the Lamb.

Amen.

The Feast of All Saints

Here is the transcript of my latest podcast for All Saints'.

The Feast of All Saints

This podcast is for All Saints’. All Saints’ Day proper is on November 1 each year, but it has become the practice in the Church to celebrate All Saints’ on the Sunday nearest to it. Ironically, this year the Sunday nearest to it was October 31. As Facebook Group members will know, in some churches, October 31 is also celebrated as Reformation Sunday.

This is because the European Reformation of the 16th century is traditionally seen as having officially had its beginning on All Saints’ Eve in 1517 when a monk called Martin Luther, as it is commonly believed, nailed 95 theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg. Luther’s protest set in motion a series of events that has resulted in the present division amongst the churches.

The irony of celebrating Reformation Sunday and All Saints’ on the same day lies in the fact that the Protestant reformers, such as Luther, Calvin, and Zwingli, were all in their day somewhat negative about honouring the saints. Their descendants today are even more so!

It is common in many Protestant churches to hear sermons explaining how, biblically, all believers are saints and that it is wrong for us to apply this title to only a select group of people.

Today, Catholic believers certainly accept that all believers are saints, in the biblical sense of the word, but they also believe that it is right to use the word in a special sense to refer to those who are recognised as having lived lives of exemplary faithfulness, service, and holiness.

For example, the English word ‘sir’ can be used to address all males as well as serving as a title for a select group of them. So too with the word saint. It can refer to all God’s people and as a title for those who are part of a distinct group within them. This dual meaning of the word is surely something it should be possible for us all to accept.

It is interesting that, while they are suspicious of Catholic attitudes to the saints, many Protestant believers, are, nevertheless, generally willing, even keen, to acknowledge those followers of Christ whose life and witness has been outstanding. Again, as I said in the Facebook Group, there is an irony in the way some of those most opposed to honouring the saints substitute their own heroes for them instead. Protestants, for example, often give far more attention to the Protestant reformers of the 16th century than many Catholics give to the saints.

For most of us, however, I imagine that our attitude to the saints is neither one of opposition nor of enthusiasm, but of indifference. We don't much care one way or the other. The saints play very little part in our lives. We have more than enough to worry about already. This attitude, I think, is a mistake. I want, then, to try to explain why I think we should take the saints more seriously than perhaps we do.

To begin I would like to make some observations on being a follower of Jesus.

St Teresa of Avila likened being a follower of Jesus in this world to spending a ‘bad night in a bad hotel’ (The Way of Perfection, chapter 40). Now St Teresa has much more to say about following Jesus than a sound bite taken from her writing. She is, however, reminding us that being a follower of Jesus in this world is hard and difficult, and that we should not expect it to be easy.

Firstly, for us as individuals, being a follower of Jesus is certainly not easy. It is not easy because it doesn't come naturally. We have doubts about God and about our faith. We have struggles against our weakness and sin. We find it hard to find time to pray and study God’s word, and then, even when we do, we don't know where to begin.

Secondly, not only is being a follower of Jesus not easy in and of itself, it is made all the more difficult because of the opposition we often encounter from the world around us. Jesus warned his disciples that they would experience trouble in the world (John 16:33). They would, Jesus said, be unpopular. They would be rejected. They would be persecuted. They would even be killed. While we personally may not experience the physical persecution that people have faced in the past, and indeed still do in parts of our world, we certainly do face hostility to our faith and often ridicule for believing in it. Many church members are as a result embarrassed to be known as followers of Christ.

Thirdly, knowing what to believe and how to apply our faith in our lives and to the issues we face on a daily basis can be both difficult and confusing. The temptation simply to conform to the world’s way of thinking is very great. Knowing what to think and how to think as a follower of Christ is itself a challenge. How are we to know what is right in the different moral decisions we have to make? How does God wants us to live and raise our families in a world that does not share our faith?

Now sometimes we are told by other believers that we have the example of Jesus and the guidance of the Holy Spirit, so what more do we want? At first this sounds a very spiritual attitude to take; it is, in fact, both mistaken and arrogant. Christ has made us members of his body, the Church, and the Church is there to give us the support we need to follow Christ. St Paul, in 1 Corinthians, describes how we are baptized into one body and as one body in Christ are all members together (1 Corinthians 12:12-13). We need one another.

Now there is much that we can learn from each other and from our leaders and teachers in the Church. We can support and pray for one another, but we all, church leaders and teachers included, have our own struggles and difficulties too.

This is where the saints come marching in!

Those the Church recognises in a special way as saints are believers who had the same struggles and difficulties as us, but who through the grace of God found a way through them and learned how to overcome them. The saints have been there before and know what it is like. They can now serve as our teachers and guides.

For example, if you are visiting a new place (when we were able to do such things), you can, of course, just go and hope for the best. You can find your own way around, enjoying the sights as you come across them. Alternatively, you can buy a guidebook or register for a guided tour. This doesn't prevent you from making your own discoveries, but it can help prevent you getting lost or missing something that you wouldn't otherwise have seen. What is more, it enables you to go deeper and understand more about the place you are visiting and the sights you are seeing.

The writer to the Hebrews speaks of the ‘great cloud of witnesses’ that we are surrounded by, whom we can look to for encouragement and whom we can learn from (Hebrews 12:1). St Paul in Ephesians describes how Christ when he ascended gave gifts. His gifts were that some would be ‘apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers’ (Ephesians 4:4-12). Christ's gifts to us are not simply the gifts of the Spirit that we normally think of when we talk of spiritual gifts; the people who receive spiritual gifts are themselves also God’s gifts to us.

St Paul wrote to believers that they should imitate him and follow his example (1 Corinthians 4:16, 11:1; Philippians 3:17). The saints too are a gift from God to the church. Not only can we learn from their life and their teaching, they also serve as role models for us to imitate and follow in the same way St Paul himself was an example for those who knew him to imitate and follow.

In the Book of Revelation, St John has a vision of heaven and sees there those who have died in the faith of Christ. The saints in heaven are described by St John, so that those he is writing to in the seven churches of Asia can know what God looks for in the life of believers. St John wants to offer encouragement to the believers in their life and witness for the Gospel. St John writes of the victory over the devil of the saints now in heaven:

‘And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death.’ (Revelation 12:11)

Those the Church recognises as saints often faced great obstacles and opposition as they followed Christ, and many suffered martyrdom. The saints show us how we can overcome obstacles and opposition as we too seek to be faithful to Christ. The saints encourage us to see that we are not alone and that even in the darkest moments when the opposition to the Church and to our faith seems to be at its strongest, victory is possible by trusting in Christ.

As I have said many times now, the constant message of the world we live in is that we should focus on ‘self’. This means, firstly, discovering our own identity and being true to ourself. It is, we are told, for us to decide who we are and who we want to be, and it is up to us to realize our potential. Secondly, it means getting the most out of this life and following our dreams. And thirdly, it means demonstrating we matter by ‘making a difference’ and leaving something of ourselves for people to remember us by when we die.

This is a message which we are bombarded with. You find it everywhere: from the seats of power to places of learning; it is all over social media and intrinsic to every form of entertainment. It finds expression in many ways, but it is easily summarized: ‘It’s all about me and I can do it.’

The saints, however, tell us another story. The saints tell us, ‘It’s all about God and we can't do it.’ Instead of the way that we are urged to take by the world around us, the saints direct us to a different way.

Firstly, by their life and example, the saints teach us that we are not put here to be ourself, but to be who God wants us to be. God has shown us what that looks like in Christ, and the saints show us how to become more Christ-like. Secondly, the saints teach us that the Gospel is not about getting all we can out of this life and following our dreams, but doing God’s will and following Christ in the hope of sharing hereafter in his life. Thirdly, the saints teach us it is not about demonstrating we matter by trying to leave something of ourselves behind for people to remember us by when we die, but sharing God's love through lives lived in the service of others whether we are remembered for doing so or not.

There is a great scene in the film: ‘A Man for All Seasons’. In it an ambitious man, Richard Rich, asks Sir Thomas Moore to help get him promoted to an influential position.

Sir Thomas Moore asks him, ‘Why not be a teacher? You'd be a fine teacher; perhaps a great one.’ Richard Rich answers, ‘If I was, who would know it?’ Sir Thomas Moore replies, ‘You; your pupils; your friends; God. Not a bad public, that.’

Richard Rich refuses to listen and finds preferment another way.

We long for fame, power, and glory; the saints encourage us to pursue faithfulness, service, and holiness.

As we celebrate All Saints’, I would like to think that what I have said about the saints is something all believers can share and believe in. Many believers, however, also believe that while the saints may have left this world, they are very much alive in Christ and are praying with Christ for us and for God’s Kingdom to come.

What is more, many also believe we can ask the saints in heaven to pray for us and that we can bring our prayer requests to them. For those who believe this, the saints offer us more than their teaching and an example of faithfulness, service, and holiness. They are partners with us as we seek to follow Christ.

St Catherine of Siena said to those who were close to her that she could do more for them by dying and going to be with Christ than she could by remaining with them.

Now I realise that the idea of the saints praying for us, and even more of asking them to pray for us, is for many believers quite simply a step too far. And if you don't want to take that step then don't worry. You can, of course, ask me and other believers to pray for you.

But let me ask: if it is OK to ask me or other believers to pray for you, why not ask the saints? As a Church, when we say the Apostles’ Creed, we say we believe in the ‘communion of saints’. The word ‘saint’ here is used in the sense of everyone who has faith in Christ, including, but not limited to, those we refer to as saints in a special way. However, it does refer to all the saints, both those in this world and those who are now with Christ.

Whether we ask the saints to pray for us or not is not something that we should divide and fall out over. That would not be honouring the saints. The way we should all unite in honouring the saints is by making sure that we don't miss out on what we can learn from their lives and teaching.

So let us honour God by honouring those in whom he is glorified and who gained the victory by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony.

And we do that most when we follow their example and seek to glorify Christ in our own lives.

Amen.

All Saints' Day

Here is the transcript of my podcast for this week, All Saints'.

All Saints' Day

Reading: Philippians 4:10-23

With our second reading this week, we have come to the end of St Paul’s letter to the Philippians. Two of the main themes of Philippians are clearly in view in the final chapter of the letter. The first is the theme of ‘joy’. As we have seen, St Paul uses the ‘joy’ word group sixteen times in the letter.

Here, in chapter 4, St Paul writes emphatically:

‘Rejoice in the Lord always; again, I will say, Rejoice.’ (Philippians 4:4)

Again, as we have noted previously in this series of sermons on the letter, St Paul’s primary meaning when he speaks of joy and rejoicing isn’t that we should be happy. There will be times when we will be happy as believers. Very often, however, we will be anything but. Happiness by its very nature is an emotion that depends on how we are feeling and on what is happening in our life. Joy is more than a feeling, and rejoicing is something we can do regardless of how we feel. Instead of using the word ‘rejoice’, we could translate what St Paul writes as: ‘celebrate in the Lord’.

This week I got a promotional email from Marks and Spencer, which said ‘celebrate with us’. This is St Paul’s message, only he tells the recipients of his letter to celebrate in the Lord!

To ‘rejoice in the Lord’, then, is to celebrate who we belong to and what he means to us. This is something far more significant than feelings of happiness, which, by their very nature, are transient and circumstantial.

It is because we ‘rejoice in the Lord’, St Paul tells the Philippian believers in chapter four, that we who have faith in Christ do not need to worry. Instead, we are to bring what is troubling us to God and ask him for his help and to give us what we need (Philippians 4:6). It is because we have this confidence in the Lord and know that he will look after us that St Paul can write:

‘And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.’ (Philippians 4:7)

The peace of God guards our hearts and minds whatever happens to us. This, then, brings us to a second theme of the letter. It relates to the ‘mind’ and how believers think. St Paul uses the ‘mind’ word group ten times in the letter.

St Paul has urged to Philippian believers to strive with ‘one mind for the faith of the Gospel’ (Philippians 1:27); he has asked them to make his joy complete by being of ‘the same mind’ (Philippians 2:2). In chapter 4, he specifically asks two of his co-workers who have fallen out with each other to put their differences aside and to be of the same ‘mind’ (Philippians 4:2). In chapter 2, he has already told them and the other Philippian believers that they should have the ‘same mind as that which was in Christ Jesus’ (Philippians 2:5). He tells them all that those ‘who are mature should be of the same mind’ as him in ‘forgetting what lies behind and pressing forward’ to what God has ahead for them (Philippians 3:13).

St Paul has told the Philippian believers that they should have the same mind, the same outlook, and the same way of seeing the world as Christ. Now, in chapter four, he tells them actively to replace negative and wrong thoughts with positive and right ones. St Paul encourages the Philippian believers to drive out evil thoughts by thinking good thoughts and filling their minds with what is holy. He writes:

‘Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.’ (Philippians 4:8)

To rejoice in the Lord is to rejoice in what glorifies the Lord and to reject everything that is contrary to our faith in him.

Finally, in these last verses of chapter four, we come to one of the main reasons for that St Paul has for writing the letter in the first place. The Church at Philippi had sent St Paul a gift of money to support him as part of their partnership with him in the Gospel. The Philippian believers were amongst St Paul’s most faithful supporters. He writes that they have supported him from the very beginning, even when he was in Thessalonica when he first came to Macedonia (Philippians 4:16).

This gift of money has been brought to St Paul by Epaphroditus who nearly lost his life in the process (Philippians 2:27). These last verses of chapter four, then, are St Paul’s ‘thank you’ for the gift they have sent him and his official receipt. To our eyes, it seems a rather complicated way of saying ‘thank you’. Why doesn’t he just come out with it and say, ‘thank you’?

Part of the reason is that he is following the conventions of the day for how to express thanks for a gift. Even today, for example, we have established formats for different types of letters. Another part of the reason is also that he has told the Philippian believers that they should not worry, but make their requests known to God. He has also just told them, in the passage immediately before our reading for this week, that they should follow his example (Philippians 4:9). St Paul needs to be seen to be following his own advice! He doesn’t want the Philippian believers to think that God has failed to provide for him now he is in prison.

Instead, he writes that he sees the Philippian believers’ gift as, above all, an offering that they have made to God and which God has shared with him. (Just as priests shared in the offerings sacrificed to God in the Temple!) St Paul himself has learnt to be content whether he has a lot or a little. He can do all things through God who strengthens him, regardless of his material circumstances. Nevertheless, he is genuinely grateful to the Philippian believers for their concern for him. God will provide for their needs too (Philippians 4:19).

As the Philippian believers show with their gift, however, and as St Paul acknowledges, God does indeed provide, but he provides through his people as they share what they have. We refer in the Apostles’ Creed to the ‘communion of saints’. The ‘communion of saints’ is a real communion of all those who have faith in Christ, both past and present. For those of us in the present, it is not simply a spiritual communion but a practical one as we share what we have with each other in partnership for the Gospel. The Philippian Church’s gift to St Paul showed how they thought and what their outlook and priorities were.

So what can we learn from this?

St Paul makes it very clear in the letter to the Philippian believers that how and what they think is important. What goes on in our mind, matters. We have seen, when we looked at St Paul’s letter to the Church in Rome, how St Paul tells the Romans believers that they are not to be ‘conformed to this world, but to be transformed by the renewing of their minds’ (Romans 12:2). Our minds as believers need to be constantly renewed. The way we think will determine what we do and how we live.

Firstly, we need to reject a worldview that leads us to think and have attitudes and values that conflict with the Gospel.

Not only do sinful thoughts and attitudes come from within us, the world around us tries to shape the way we think and see things. We are constantly being encouraged to adopt a mindset and outlook that is opposed to God and what it means to be a follower of Christ. We are bombarded with images and ideas designed to lead us away from how God wants us to think and from having the mind of Christ.

The internet, and what it has given rise to, has taken this to a whole new level. The writer, Yuval Noah Harari, who is certainly not sympathetic to those who believe in God, believes the time is coming soon when companies such as Google will know us better than we know ourselves. They will be able to use this knowledge to control us. They are already doing so to a significant extent. For us as believers, this poses a far bigger threat than that posed in the past by hostile governments.

Every moment of every day we are being subjected to ideas and images at a conscious and unconscious level designed to control our minds and thoughts and so to influence our behaviour and actions. It often amuses me that people in the west have so much to say about state control and about regimes which seek to influence how their citizens think, when they themselves are the most thought controlled generation that has ever existed. Influencing how people think and behave is, after all, what capitalism is all about.

The consumer society is built on persuading people to buy things that they don’t need, didn’t know they wanted and, very often, that they will never even use. If you want to see what mind-control looks like, sit on the MTR and count how many people are NOT staring at their phones. It won’t take you very long!

The sheer brilliance of capitalism has been in controlling people’s thoughts and actions, while all the time leaving them thinking that they are free and responsible for their lives and how they live them.

The great achievement of the religion of Self has been convincing people to believe they have the freedom and power to live as they choose and to do what they want. The reality being that they choose what they are told to choose. Left to ourselves, we are powerless to resist and subject to forces beyond our control.

A simple example makes the point. Have you ever had the experience of seeing a picture of yourself taken some years ago and being thoroughly embarrassed by what you were wearing and what you looked like? Many of us have. But, at the time, we thought we were dressing perfectly normally. We were, in fact, just following the fashion. We don’t just follow fashion in what clothes we put on, but also in how we think and behave as a consequence.

In every area of our lives we are subject to unseen forces which exercise a powerful influence over us. But these aren’t just the social, cultural, and economic forces that I have been describing. These are themselves powerful enough. The Bible, however, describes how we are subject to spiritual powers, whether we believe in them or not. These powers exercise their control over us, not least by controlling how we think and by shaping our worldview, ensuring that we conform to this world and, worse still, are obedient to the ruler of this world.

Today, we celebrate All Saints’ Day. The saints are those who having found freedom in Christ went on to have victory over the world through their faith in Him. This is why the world hated them as it hated Christ before them. It is why it hates those today who, like the saints, put their faith in Christ and discover the peace and freedom he brings.

It is surely no coincidence that the world, at the time of year when we are celebrating the victory of the saints, prefers instead to celebrate, not that victory, but images that represent the very forces of darkness that the saints fought against and triumphed over. Of course, I realize that most people do this thinking it all to be harmless fun. What they don’t realize is, that without knowing it, they are celebrating images of the forces that control them. The Devil doesn’t much care whether we believe in him as long as we think and do what he wants.

Secondly, not only are we to reject the worldview of the world, we are to have the ‘mind of Christ’.

This isn’t something that happens automatically but is something that we have to work at. It is something that we consciously have to make an effort to do. It means in the first place having the same attitude and outlook as our Lord. It also means replacing evil thoughts with good ones. It is perhaps worth saying at this point that many believers describe how they have thoughts they cannot help and of which they are ashamed of thinking. This will always be true until these bodies, of which our minds are a part, are themselves redeemed.

Nor are we in this life, able to escape the evil images and words with which we are constantly bombarded. Even more so in the age in which we live than in previous ones. We do, however, need to resist them and their influence upon us. This means not simply avoiding that which is obviously evil, but also, as St Paul tells the Philippian believers, thinking on that which is positive, good, and true. St Paul would urge us to take control of what goes into our minds.

The reason that St Paul is so concerned in chapter 3 about the false teaching of those he calls the ‘dogs’ is that he knows that what we think and believe inevitably affects how we live. He wants the Philippian believers not only to reject false teaching, but to make knowing Christ and having a relationship with him the goal of their lives.

All this can sound all very theoretical, but as St Paul shows it affects every aspect of how we live our lives, not least in our attitude to material goods and money. We are be thankful for what we have, rather than constantly wanting more. Rather than worrying, we are to make our requests known to God, knowing that God will provide for our needs; not necessarily our wants, but certainly our needs. We are to stop competing with others and promoting ourselves, and, instead, we are to seek to work in partnership with each other in proclaiming the Gospel.

All this is hard, but we have the assurance that we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us. And when we are tempted to give up and despair, we know that God promises that his peace will guard our hearts and minds.

St Paul explains to the Philippian believers that he wants them to be ‘blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation’, in which they ‘shine like stars in the world’ (Philippians 3:15).

The writer of the letter to the Hebrews tells us that we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses. Today is their day, and we thank God for the witness of those in Christ who went before us. They too faced great opposition, but they conquered ‘by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony’ (Revelation 12:11). St John tells us that greater is he who is in us than he who is in the world’ (1 John 4:4). The challenge we face as we seek to live for Christ may seem a daunting one, but the saints show us what can be achieved by those who trust, as they did, in the One who promises, not only to be with us, but in us.

Today, we honour the saints. We give thanks to God for them for their faith and courage. We ask them to pray for us that we too may shine like them and like them overcome through faith in Him who died for us, but whom God has so exalted that, as St Paul tells the Philippian believers, at his name, the name of Jesus:

‘… every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.’ (Philippians 2:10-11)

Amen.